E3 2009: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Preview

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A classic gets a makeover.

By Charles Onyett

It's been around 20 years since gamers first stepped into the shoes of Guybrush Threepwood in the original Secret of Monkey Island, a revered Lucasarts adventure title. Now it's getting an updated re-release, this time with some cool features that might inspire any Monkey Island vet to play through again as well as draw in anyone unfamiliar with both the adventure genre and this particular title.

At Lucasarts' E3 2009 booth a demo was on display, and the most obvious changes for this version are totally redone high-definition graphics. They'll still present the same screens from the original, but now with all sorts of added art assets as well as a more detailed overall presentation. As for the interface, in this version you'll get a more context sensitive cursor that was implemented to make action inputs and navigation a little less cumbersome.

If you're someone who cringes at the very thought of losing your verb menu, a neat feature has been built in to let you on the fly switch between the old and new graphical styles. This means you could play through the whole game in its original form, ignore it altogether, or switch back and forth just to trigger a little nostalgia or check out exactly how the visuals have been upgraded for this version.

A hint system is also being built in, which should help out those players who get frustrated with getting stuck in these kinds of adventure titles. It won't give everything away at once, however, it'll be a progressive system. The first time you ask for a hint, the game will just give you a vague clue. If that doesn't help and you need more assistance to progress, you can ask for a second, more detailed bit of advice. If you're still unclear as to how to proceed, asking for help a third time will slap a giant yellow arrow onscreen pointing you directly to what you need to do.

The musical score is being remastered for the new game, and all new voice work is being recorded by cast members from the third game in the series, The Curse of Monkey Island. We're certainly looking forward to seeing more. The game is scheduled to be released this summer over Xbox Live and for download on PC.